Nightfall: Ida and Amos
INGRID IS A REBEL when it comes to doing what I say. She thinks her crone-hood gives her the right to piss people off for their own good. She’s the only person in Mossy Creek who gets in my face and tells me I don’t belong with Del Jackson.
“That man still has one foot in his marriage,” she lectures. “When a man puts his foot into something, the rest of him eventually follows.”
Her argument is bolstered by the fact that Del’s ex-wife, Sheila, moved from Tennessee to Bigelow two months ago, right before Thanksgiving. She’s living in a condo five minutes from their son and two grandchildren. Her son and grandkids don’t just love her, they actually like her. They want her and Del to re-marry, despite the fact that the marriage ended in amicable divorce a good twenty years ago.
Okey dokey. I may not enjoy the situation, but I’ll never try to come between Sheila and her family. I have a perfectly pleasant relationship with them. Del and I took his grandkids and Little Ida to Disney World last summer, and we had a great time. All very civilized.
Until Sheila slithered back into Del’s life. She seems to be a competent person, so why has she been crying on Del’s shoulder at every opportunity? Okay, so she had her savings hijacked by a bad investment counselor, and the Memphis technology company she worked for sent her job to Bombay, and she has to start over in a new career as a real estate agent in Bigelow, and her rich boyfriend has left her for a younger woman, and so . . .
So Del feels sorry for her. Go figure. He’s a protective man. A military man. Apparently, he finds Sheila’s needy girlishness more appealing than not. Unlike yours truly, she wants a man for personal security, the kind of man who clubs mice and shoots garden snakes. Me, I like mice and garden snakes.
Not that I feel threatened. Even if she is tiny and blonde and looks a good ten years younger than 45, meaning that even though I look a good ten years younger than 52, she is still younger than me, in dog years, or something. Anyway, she’s small and I can take her in a fight. If I slug her just right, I bet Botox will shoot out her nose.
So I’m not worried, no. Not worried, just . . . disappointed. I guess deep down I still want a soul mate, another Jeb, a man who has saved himself just for me—metaphorically, at least—a man who won’t ever look over his shoulder at an old flame.
A man who will only look over his shoulder at me, even if that means he has to peer through the steel bars between the front and back seat of his patrol car.
“Home, sweet home,” Amos deadpanned, as we drove up the lane at Hamilton Farm.
I swept a gaze over my house and yard. The cold afternoon sun had just sunk below the horizon. Shadows slanted across the trees and shrubs, casting lonely, blue hues under the veranda. Night was falling quickly, with a hard freeze predicted. There were no visiting cars, and no lights in the windows. June, my housekeeper, must be gone for the day. Amos and I were all alone.
I shivered but put on my best air of nonchalant sophistication. “Just slow down enough for me to jump out at the front gate. You know, the way chain gang convicts used to leap off the county’s old flatbed truck on their way back to the prison camp. I’ll make my escape.”
Amos chuckled darkly. He parked the patrol car directly in front of my wrought-iron garden gate and fieldstone walkway. “Go ahead. Make a break for it. I’ll give you thirty minutes before I bring in the bloodhounds.”
“There’s not a bloodhound in this county that can track me down. The scent of Chanel throws them off, every time.”
Amos got out, popped the locks, then opened my door. He gave me a bow, complete with a sardonic smile. “Then I’ll bring in trackers with French poodles.”
I swept out of the patrol car like a starlet on a red carpet, gauging my effect and playing the drama to the hilt. My shoulder brushed his hand on the door frame. An errant lock of my upswept hair feathered across his chin as I stood. He straightened as if burned, but when I looked up at him he gave back only the tight, cool smile I knew so well. I returned it with an arched brow and a taunting attitude, daring him, reckless. “Amos, I’d hop an oil tanker to China before I’d let you and your French poodles catch me.”
“All right, then, I’ll go after you with swimming Chinese poodles.”
“Because you’re the kind of police chief who always gets his man?”
He bent his head toward me. The smile remained but his eyes went darker, more serious. “Because I’m the kind of man who intends to get his woman.”
I stopping breathing. “How can you be so certain?”
“Ida, the only question is, How can you not be?”
One, two, three. Heartbeats. I took a deep breath. “I have these dreams—these nightmares, where you tell me to jump down from a high limb of the Sitting Tree, you tell me you’ll catch me, but when I let go and fall . . . I never find out if you’re really there. I can’t see what happens to me.”
“I’ll always be there. I always have been.”
We traded the kind of look that slips between each pulse of blood in the veins. “Maybe I’ve been all wrong,” I whispered. “You’re not rescuing me. I’m rescuing you.”
He nodded.
That did it. I can never resist a man who needs me.
I kissed him. He kissed me back. He wasn’t a teenager anymore, and I wasn’t a freshly grieving widow. We were equals. And we could burn each other up. I held him. I leaned into him. He pulled me up on my toes. That kiss lasted forever; it was a diamond, and every facet caught the light a different way. Sweet, sad, tender, profane, sacred, taking, giving, wanting. Wanting. Wanting. We gleamed, together.
“I hope you read Ida her rights, first.”
Del’s voice.
We froze.
Del.
I give Amos credit for more composure than I managed. He slowly released me, turned smoothly, and looked up at my veranda. I shut my eyes for a second, gritted my teeth, then stepped around Amos and followed his gaze.
Del stood at the top of my veranda steps, a look on his face like ice on stone. He was dressed in khakis, flannel, and a heavy jacket, all spattered with mud. I hadn’t told him my plans for the day. Why should I? He was on a camping trip high in the mountains with his grandkids, his son—and maybe with Sheila, too. I had wanted to ask, but restrained myself. I trusted him. He trusted me.
Oh, the irony.
I took a slow, shamed breath, then stiffened my spine. “Del, there’s no excuse for what just happened. But Amos and I didn’t plan it, I promise you.”
Amos shifted to stand just slightly in front of me, a position of territorial claim. He never took his eyes off Del. Del returned the favor. It’s fair to say their staring match resembled two large dogs facing off over a bone. At that point, I needed a calcium injection. My legs felt weak.
“I provoked her, Del,” Amos announced flatly, a gallant lie.
I couldn’t let it stand. “No, Del, he didn’t. I kissed him. I take full responsibility. I apologize to you from the bottom of my heart. Until today I’ve never been unfaithful to the man in my life. Not in word or deed. Not to my husband, and not to you. I’m ashamed of what I did. But the truth remains. I kissed Amos.” I looked at Amos. “It’s over. And it won’t happen again.”
Amos didn’t blink. Didn’t register any emotion. Always a bad sign. It’s fair to say I know him better than anyone else in the world. Patience and determination are two of his strongest traits. Along with pure, stubborn pride. When he’s absolutely fixed on getting what he wants, he doesn’t blink. “It’s not over,” he said.
After a stony second, Del slid his fists into his front trouser pockets, then ambled down the veranda steps with the deceptive calm of the air before a tornado. He walked up to us slowly, halting a few feet away, still staring at Amos. Ignoring me. Prickly anger began to sidle alongside my general shame and
misery. Apparently, when two big, ballsy dogs face off over a bone, the bone is supposed is supposed to flutter its eyelashes and keep quiet.
“I’ll walk you to your car,” Del said to Amos.
Amos smiled thinly. “I’ll walk you to yours.”
I grabbed my coat and purse from the patrol car. “I’ve got a better idea. You two big dogs stand here and give each other the laser eyeball until you’re both reduced to charred piles of furry hackles and male ego. In the meantime, your girlie little bone is walking herself indoors. Alone.”
I strode up my front walk without looking back, slammed my stained glass doors behind me, locking them with loud, emphatic rattles of the chain and deadbolt. Then I hurried to a discreet window in the dining room and peeked through the Irish lace of my curtains.
Del walked stiffly to his Range Rover, and Amos got into his squad car. Del edged into the lane, then stopped, waiting. Amos edged into the lane, then stopped. I swear, I think I heard him gun the patrol car’s engine, and I think I heard Del gun his, too. What were they going to do—drag race on my one-lane driveway?
Finally, Del blinked. He led the way. Amos followed. After both vehicles disappeared into the darkness I groaned, shook my head, slapped my forehead, and, in general, gave myself a whup-ass mental paddling. I wanted to crawl under the veranda, in misery.
Now here you go again, you say you want your freedom . . .
Stevie Nicks. Her song, Dreams. My cell phone, playing it. What timing.
I checked the caller’s number, then numbly lifted the phone to my ear. “What’s up, Sandy?”
“Hi, Mayor. Is the chief there?”
I watched my breath make frosty clouds in the night air. “He just left.”
“He’s not answering his cell phone.”
“Give him five minutes and try again.”
“He okay?”
“He’s been better.”
“You okay?”
“What can I do for you, Officer Crane?”
“Uh oh. I guess the creekwater’s really hit the fan, this time.”
“Which comes as no surprise to you and your usual group of snooping, co-conspiring confidantes. You and Jayne Reynolds ratted on me, didn’t you?”
“Uh, well, uh, Mayor, hmmm—”
“Nevermind. What did I miss today? That is, after I left town with the Mossy Creek chapter of the CIA secretly tracking me.”
Sandy heaved an audible sigh of relief, no doubt glad I’d changed the subject. Then she launched into a long list of bizarre incidents. Inez and Addie Lou. Charlie and Louise. Pearl and Spiva. Chip and Rory. Eula Mae and the bank robber. To name a few. Finishing with, “And Honey Lymon just got home from the airport with her poor sister’s orphaned kids, and Peggy Caldwell is upset ‘cause Dashiell’s disappeared, and Smokey Lincoln over at the Forestry Service says the temperature’s going down to ten degrees tonight, and Charlie and Louise haven’t been seen for a couple of hours—for all I know, their house has killed them and hid their bodies—and Miz Eula Mae has called twice asking if Amos is gonna give her a badge to wear since the bank president told her she can be an honorary guard, and I just heard that Chip and Rory are asking girls over for a bonfire, and . . . and . . . Mayor, I don’t often say this, but right now, me and Mutt sure could use a pack of cherry cigarilloes, a six-pack of beer and a bottle of aspirin.”
I could use something stronger than that. “Sit tight. I’m on my way. I’ll check on Peggy, call the Sawyers, talk to Bert and Honey, drop by to see Eula Mae, and make sure the Browns know what Chip and Rory are up to. After that, I’ll be in my office at town hall.”
She perked up. “Thank you! And, uh . . . where do you figure the chief is heading tonight?”
“Anywhere I’m not,” I said dully.
Nightfall: Chip and Rory
In all the excitement earlier that day, I plumb forgot that Rory had asked Ashley Winthrop and the other girls over for a bonfire that night. As it turned out, my little brother Toby had just come home from his friend’s house when a knock sounded at the back door. Since he was closest, he answered it.
“Hi, Toby,” came a sweet, girly voice I immediately recognized as Ashley Winthrop’s. “Is Rory here? We came for the bonfire.”
Before I got a single word out, Toby swung the door wide open and invited the girls into the kitchen. Good Gosh A’mighty! The timing couldn’t a been worse. Ashley and the girls stopped dead in their tracks, their chatter breaking off and their eyes going wide.
There stood Rory at the kitchen table, helping my mama make candy for Sunday’s church bazaar. He was putting tiny pink roses on chocolate lollipops. And he was wearing Mama’s frilly red-checked apron and a hair net. Yep, Rory was clocking it.
Blood rushed to my head so fast, it made me dizzy. How would he ever live this down? Word would get around school like a flash fire, and neither he nor I would ever be able to hold our heads up in public again. I stood frozen, like a deer caught in the headlights, staring helplessly at our destruction.
Not Rory, though. He paused in what he was doing, tipped a cordial nod to the girls, and said with his own smooth style, “Evening, ladies. Wish I could join you tonight, but I’ll be at my aunt’s service for quite some time.”
This was, without a doubt, a disaster. The girls burst out into a fit of giggling, and some whispered behind their hands, and Ashley Winthrop sallied on closer, as if she couldn’t be sure she was seeing right.
That was when I knew my cousin Rory had well and truly lost his mind. Because he didn’t tell those girls that he was being punished for stealing my dad’s Harley, which would have gone a long way toward salvaging the situation, in my book. He just grinned. And in that grin, I saw not one whit of embarrassment or regret or awkwardness. He was happy. He was so blasted happy, he was silly with it. His mind was entirely gone.
I mean, how could he ever go back to cool after being seen making lollipops in an apron and hair net?
But you know something? He did. Right then and there, he somehow turned it all around. He gave those girls a wink, then said to Ashley, “I’ll see you in school—whether Charles likes it or not.”
“In school?” Ashley breathed. “You mean, you’re staying in Mossy Creek?”
The phone rang. Mama answered it, and I could hear saying, “No, Mayor, I think the bonfire’s been cancelled. And guess what? Rory’s going to be staying with us from now on.”
Rory flashed a wide, white smile. And the girls all squealed and clapped and jumped up and down, while Ashley gazed at Rory like she had stars in her eyes. Now don’t that beat all?
There’s just no one in this world cooler than my cousin Rory.
Nightfall: Louise and Charlie
By the time we came home from dinner, darkness had long since fallen. I know the twenty-first of December is supposed to be the shortest day of the year, but they seem to get shorter still in January. I checked our answering machine. Ida’s voice curled out.
“Look, House,” she said drolly. “I know you’re holding Charlie and Louise hostage. Let them go. If I don’t hear from them within the next hour, I’m dropping a dime on you. Habitat for Humanity. Their volunteers will take you apart like a cheap suit. Use you for construction supplies. The next time I see you, you’ll be three little townhouses and a split-level ranch. You’re going down, baby.”
When Charlie and I finished laughing, I called Ida and told her we were safe and the house had promised to get counseling.
Charlie offered to go upstairs and bring down my nightgown and robe, but I said I’d have to brave that room sometime. I did open the door only an inch or so, turn on the light and say ‘shoo’ a couple of times before I went in. No raccoons.
When I came back downstairs in my nightgown and robe, Charlie had kindled a fire in the living room fireplace, blown up our n
ew mattress and made it up with the new sheets and blankets, and was propped up on the new pillows waving an open bottle of champagne and a pair of crystal flutes at me.
“We’ve been saving the champagne for when we finished the house,” I said from the foot of the stairs.
“We need it now.”
I folded my legs under me and sat tailor fashion on the end of the new mattress. Actually, it was very comfortable if a bit tippy. “Where did you unearth those champagne flutes?”
“The box was actually labeled crystal.”
“Amazing.”
He poured and handed me a glass of champagne. “You and I can survive anything.” He clinked his glass with mine.
By the time we had finished the bottle, the fire had burned to embers. I’m not quite sure at which point I lost my nightgown, but I do remember thinking that this would be the first time we’d made love in this house.
Afterwards I snuggled down against him with my head under his chin. The hair on his chest was the silver grey of a fox’s pelt, not the dark brown it was when we married, but I didn’t care. I was drifting into sleep when I felt a rumble in his chest and heard what sounded like a cough. I sat up on one elbow. “Charlie? Are you all right?”
His eyes were closed, but his lips were curved in a smile. The man was laughing!
“What on earth?”
He shook with laughter. “A bear? You thought a raccoon was a big, brown, furry bear?”
I smacked him. He grabbed me and a moment later we were rolling around on that bed and laughing so hard we fell off on the floor. Thank goodness it was only ten inches or so. That sobered us up a little, but not much.
Suddenly I felt so sleepy I yawned in his face. We climbed back onto our bed, I curled up, and he fitted himself against my back. He felt wonderful, but I knew I couldn’t stay spooned for long. Between Charlie’s overheated metabolism and my hot flashes, lying against his tummy is like sitting in a Swedish sauna.
As I drifted off, I realized that I felt for the first time as though I had truly come home.
Nightfall: Peggy
A Day in Mossy Creek Page 20